A chaotic field of practice: Financial reporting of the library collections of Australia's public universities, 2007-2011

The accounting practices adopted by Australia's 36 public universities in accounting for their library collections including heritage and special collections are identified and analysed. The data is collected from a survey of these institutions' annual reports over the period 2007 to 2011 and the analysis is guided by theoretical perspectives drawn from new institutional sociology (NIS). Consistent with prior research by West and Carnegie (2010), accounting for university library collections is depicted as a chaotic field of practice. Inconsistent and idiosyncratic policies that compromise the overall reliability, comparability and usefulness of university financial reports are observed, along with instances of dramatic valuation adjustments. However, the beginnings of some amelioration of the chaos are also detected, as regulatory activity and a voluntary homogenisation of accounting policies begin to take effect. In particular, a general trend towards more conservative accounting practices is evident as universities perhaps seek to guard against accounting debacles most notably massive valuation write-downs of the kind that have been suffered by several institutions over the last decade. Assigning financial values to the library collections and other non-financial resources of not-for-profit public institutions remains a problematic issue.